Top 5 Bands That Need To Stop Making Music

By Christian Hagen
More Feature Articles : World's Worst Song Lyrics

U2 are kings of repetition

The Pixies are a shadow of their former selves

Sonic Youth - "Like, so 90s"

Are Weezer joking?

Should legend Bob Dylan put up or shit up?

There always have been, and always will be, crap musicians.

Maybe they are crap because their songs are so cliché. Maybe they are woeful because of a simple lack of musical ability. Maybe they are lame because of their ridiculous rockstar antics or general douche-itude.

However a shitty musician may be defined, they exist, and there is no way to stop them (other than a collective uprising). And while one might despair at this never ending barrage of crap, in a way, it is kind of comforting.

While all the Nickelbacks, Simple Plans and Insane Clown Posse's in the world will continue to make money - their awful, awful work can unite us in a common bond of furious disgust.

We can put up with them, because as they get worse, other bands continue to get better.

But there are some times when a band's downright dud-ness can break your heart.

There are times when no matter how hard you try, you cannot ignore the pain you feel when a certain group puts out a terrible new record or makes an idiotic video. And you will try to put up a good front and forget, but it affects you, deep down in your soul... and nothing can fix it.

The only way for the pain to end is for the music to stop.

The following is a list of bands who may not have always been terrible. Some, quite the opposite. But, for whatever reason, they are or have become shitty in such a way that tortures the listener into a quivering mess. 

5. U2

No. The new U2 album is not a five star release.

Maybe it is the best album they have made since the 1980s, but that says nothing! That is like saying "It is the best M. Night Shyamalan film since Signs".

Sure, "The Joshua Tree" had a few decent songs. But lets be honest; does anyone want U2 to make another album that sounds exactly the same as their last ten?

Another awful bore like "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb", which featured one of the most sickeningly ridiculous singles in decades (Vertigo)?

For all of the humanitarian aid that Bono & Co champion, there are millions of people being tortured daily, beaten and hopeless, because U2 continues to make garbage.

Garbage that regularly gets hailed as masterpiece works by critics who still think that this is somehow the same band that they listened to during their first sexual experience in 1984.

4. The Pixies

As news of another reunion breaks, I am forced to ask: Why?

While The Pixies had an obvious influence on the alt-rock diversions of the early to mid 1990s, their influence on young musicians has waned over time. And if they want to keep themselves relevant to the American youth, a reunion tour is not the way to do it.

The Pixies, your time has passed as a band.

There is no way, absolutely no way, that making new music will be anywhere near as satisfying or worthwhile as it was back in your heyday. So what will you be doing? Playing the same old songs to the same old crowds, bloated and wrinkled parodies of your former selves squeezing money from the pockets of your fans.

You have reunited, and things were alright. Now stop. Don't be The Grateful Dead. Get out now, while you have still got solo projects to sell.

3. Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth's "Rather Ripped" was hailed as a return to form by many critics. But what form are we referring to?

Are we referring to the screechy, repetitious, whine rock that did less for indie rock than it did for the douchebag hipster movement that followed it?

Are we referring to the unlistenable noise, the nonsense lyrics that mean nothing?

Are we referring to the art school bull?

Even by those standards, Sonic Youth has grown stale and continues to get staler. Their act has been redone, and done better, by countless younger bands - while their groove is no longer innovative.

If you quit creating or branching out, you quit being relevant, and sadly, Sonic Youth's relevance is stuck decades ago, where it belongs.

2. Weezer

Of all of the bands mentioned in this list, Weezer is the one makes me the most depressed.

I can forgive bands that get older and fail to spark like they used to, and I can forgive bands that quit trying. But Weezer haven't just gotten worse, they have gotten more egotistical. And the cockier the swagger, the cheesier the songs.

It is a vicious cycle that has overtaken a band beloved by many and still influential today. Remember "The Blue Album"? "Pinkerton"? Hell, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for "Maladroit", which while formulaic, features probably the best guitar work of the band's career.

But from the first moment I heard Beverly Hills, I knew something was wrong.

Before I knew it, I, like every other Weezer fan, was knee-deep in dog doo. "Make Believe" was supposed to be their finale, their goodbye record. After listening to it, I was struck both by sorrow and by relief, because at least they could do no more harm to their discography than that dreck.

But then they had to ruin it. "The Red Album" is one of the most vile, insidious, soul crushing albums I have ever heard, a blight on the ear and the Weezer name. How can an English major from Harvard write poetry so woeful a middle school student could do it better? Each song more despicable than the last, and Rivers Cuomo called it their "Best Record".

Me thinks not Mr Cuomo!

1. Bob Dylan

This one is gonna hurt.

Bob, you are without question, the greatest songwriter in American history. Even if you have a reputation for being a bit of a douche, you have still managed to transform the musical landscape for all time.

"Highway 61 Revisited", "Blonde on Blonde", "Blood on the Tracks" - all undisputed classics.

That said, please stop making albums...

Sorry to say, but Dylan has basically been making the same album for the last two decades - and the time has come to either try something brand new that no one expected... or to stop altogether.

The formula he has followed is neither the folk of his early days nor the classic rock / blues of his best days. It is simply an old time blues paint-by-numbers sound. Lyrics have become bland and altogether unimaginative.

While it is great that he is still a political lightning rod, Bob Dylan's worldview gets lost in his own songwriting. His was the voice of his generation, but unfortunately, Dylan's generation has more than passed its prime.

I would love to hear him do something new, something left field. Make a drum and bass garage rock album. Make a techno album. Make an auto-tuned R&B album about heartbreak (Ok, maybe not that last one!).

But you know as well as I do, Bobby boy, that it is not going to happen. He will just keep making the same thing again and again and critics will keep kissing his butt, but he will never make a truly classic album ever again.

Until these artists learn of their folly, the musical realm will always bear the painful weight of diminished returns.

Maybe someday we can live in a world where the good remain good and the shitty remain shitty. But as long as good bands slip into melodrama or banality, or as shitty bands make an indelible mark on the landscape and then flog a dead horse until their whips hit the sand, there will never be peace.

We must try to overcome.


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